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Television advertising is a powerful instrument for controlling the minds of the idiot public. If you’re not careful you can be suckered into believing anything Eva Longoria/Jamie Oliver/a cartoon dog tells you. BE STRONG! If TV networks and advertising media companies want to stop people skipping past their stupid adverts with their Sky+ then it’s time they stop and have a think about some of the garbage they use to try to sell products. Stop giving money to these people – they will soon learn.

The following is part one of a two part list of advertising campaigns that make me want to melt my eyeballs with a blowtorch. I REFUSE to give these people my money until they can produce an advert that I can sit through without punching something.

Halifax

What exactly do these people think they’re doing? We all remember Howard, of course. Then the brief transformation into CGI Howard, for some God damn reason; as if the only criticism they could find for the guy was that he wasn’t a cartoon. He returned as real Howard for another stint in the ads before finally being chucked onto the scrap heap to tour universities as a sidekick to that woman who used to sing in the Bodyform sanitary towel advert.

So, Howard and his tuneless re-workings of chart songs is no more (who gives me extra, Howard? You do. I assume you’re talking about stomach ulcers.) Clearly, though, Halifax is still employing the same advertising agency. I’m now forced to sit through their pathetic attempts to convince me that all the employees at the Halifax spend their spare time working on a financial services themed radio station. It’s as if they wrote the radio campaign and then used the budget for the TV adverts to go on holiday.

As if the childish and lazy efforts of the writing aren’t bad enough, they then use the world’s most irritating actors to perform the parts! At least, I assume they’re paid actors. The thought had crossed my mind that maybe they’d collected a group of violent mental patients, lobotomised them and then pumped them full of LSD. This would certainly account for the seraphic look in their eyes as they spew forth the absolute drivel the script requires of them.

How they can make amends

Nothing short of a full televised apology from the senior directors of the company, while the writers, producers, actors etc involved in the campaign are flogged in the foreground.
Marks & Spencer’s Food

Another repeat offender. For several years now, the Marks & Spencer food adverts have tried to portray the eating of their ready made meals as synonymous with having a 30 minute long orgasm. I can only assume that the people behind these adverts are hugely overweight. NEWSFLASH, FATTIES! Not everyone gets sexual pleasure from eating! Presumably there are plenty of people in this country for whom the ultimate sexual adventure is doing it in front of the TV while Matthew Macfadyen describes a roast chicken dinner. I am not one of them. Presumably this is a common enough fetish to make these adverts successful.

How they can make amends

An honest, no holds barred version of the advert where Matthew Macfadyen masturbates while Dervla Kirwan eats a chocolate pudding with her hands.